Agriculture's Likely Role in Meeting Canada's Kyoto Commitments*

Voluntary adoption of beneficial management practices will be the primary means by which farmers cut net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The offset system will not be a major driver due to (a) the relatively low prices likely to be offered by large final emitters facing an emission cap, (b) discounts applied to those prices for temporary sequestration, (c) the transaction costs and risk premiums associated with signing carbon contracts, and (d) the low elasticity of supply of CO₂ abatement. Although Canadian farmers are likely to participate to only a limited extent in the carbon‐offset market, many will find it profitable to adopt one or more of the BMPs for reducing net GHG emissions. Canadian agriculture is likely to contribute significantly to net emission reductions by voluntarily sequestering carbon due to the adoption of zero till in the last decade, and possibly by cutting fertilizer levels in the next decade. The contribution will be mainly a response to meeting personal economic objectives rather than being induced by direct incentives through the offset program.     

New ways of financing LDCs

The forthcoming third plenary meeting of UNCTAD in Santiago will primarily consider how the less developed countries (LDCs) can be integrated more effectively into the world economic system. To solve the problem of development of the so-called “Third World” it is considered essential to open up new financial resources for the LDCs.     

Risk and Nitrogen Application Levels

Stochastic weather and soil conditions are the suggested reasons why farmers tend to apply more than the recommended levels of nitrogen. This study found that uncertainty plays a role in the application decision of farmers but not in the manner typically assumed. Using a time series of field trials of corn yield to nitrogen for the same site, nitrogen was found to be a risk‐increasing input suggesting that uncertainty should decrease, rather than increase, a risk‐averse farmer's rate of nitrogen application. Similarly, viewing risk as a profit shortfall, in which fertilizer acts in the role of insurance, was also not supported with the empirical results. Instead, the key role of uncertainty is its impact on expected profits. Increasing application rates leads to lower returns in most years but the increase in profits generated under favorable growing conditions results in greater expected profits with a high application strategy. Les conditions météorologiques et pédologiques aléatoires seraient les raisons pour lesquelles les agriculteurs tendent à appliquer des doses d'azote supérieures aux doses recommandées. Selon la présente étude, l'incertitude joue un rôle dans les décisions d'application des agriculteurs, mais d'une façon différente de celle généralement supposée. À l'aide d'une série chronologique d'essais en champ mesurant le rendement du maïs en fonction de l'azote dans le même site, nous avons trouvé que l'azote était un intrant qui augmentait les risques, ce qui laisse supposer que l'incertitude devrait faire diminuer, plutôt que de faire augmenter, la dose d'application d'azote dans le cas d'un producteur qui craint les risques. De même, considérer le risque de baisse des profits où l'engrais assume le rôle d'assurance n'a pas été appuyé par les résultats empiriques. Le rôle clé de l'incertitude est son impact sur les profits prévus. L'augmentation des doses d'application entraîne une diminution des rendements la plupart des années, mais l'augmentation des profits générés dans des conditions de croissance favorables entraîne des profits prévus plus élevés grâce à une meilleure stratégie d'application.     

Exploring Farm Investment Behaviour in Transition: The Case of Russian Agriculture

This paper analyses the investment behaviour of Russian farms during the period of economic stabilisation that followed Russia’s financial crisis of 1998, and is the first to apply the error‐correction investment model to describe farms’ investment behaviour in the transitional context. Additionally, the paper employs the error‐correction and the adjustment‐cost model to test for differences in the investment behaviour between various farm categories. The results show that in general Russian farms exhibited an error‐correcting behaviour in the period under investigation. From 1999 to 2005 the output–capital gap was closed by an average rate of 10% per year. Estimates of the adjustment‐cost model show that Russian farm investments are very sensitive to the sales–capital ratio, suggesting that Russian farms exhibit increasing returns to scale and positive expectations about future revenues. Yet, such farm characteristics as ownership structure, access to input markets and also regional specifics were found to be decisive for farm investment not only in the short but long term too. Finally, the results show that the adjustment‐cost model is adequate for the evaluation of differences in short‐term investment behaviour, whereas it is noticeably less powerful for investigating differences in the farms’ long‐term investment behaviour.     

Inefficiency of manual weeding in rainfed rice systems affected by parasitic weeds

Manual weeding is the predominant weed control practice and the most labor‐consuming activity in smallholder, rainfed rice systems in sub‐Saharan Africa. This study investigates the technical inefficiency of weeding labor, other labor, and overall inputs, and identifies sources of technical inefficiency of weeding labor in the context of parasitic weed infestation. The analysis applies a two‐stage approach. First, a directional input distance function DEA approach was used to compute input‐specific technical inefficiencies. Second, sources of technical inefficiency of weeding labor were identified using a truncated bootstrap regression. Data from 406 randomly selected smallholder farmers from Benin (n = 215) and Côte d'Ivoire (n = 191) were used. The technical inefficiency of weeding labor was high in both countries (58% in Côte d'Ivoire and 69% in Benin). This implies that a substantial fraction of weeding labor could be saved without reducing rice productivity or increasing the use of other inputs. A decrease in the technical inefficiency of weeding labor with an increase in production scale was observed. In addition, weeding regime and education level were each associated to significant changes in the technical inefficiency of weeding labor.     

Ecological Goals and Wetland Preservation Choice

Canada's multilayered wetland policies promote the preservation of “significant” wetlands, but the criteria for identifying these wetlands are not clearly defined partially because wetlands are a source of multiple ecological outputs, such as abating sediment and providing wildlife habitat. This study adapts a GIS-based, hydrologic, and economic model to examine the trade-offs between agricultural interests and ecological benefits in the Eramosa Watershed, located in southwestern Ontario, Canada. While preserving a wetland enhances both water quality and wildlife habitat goals, and the costs of preservation increase at an increasing rate as expected, the ranking of wetlands, and so the choice of “significant” wetlands, varies considerably depending upon the wetland benefit chosen as the policy goal. The trade-off between wetland benefits and drainage is diminished if there is an alternative means to abate sediment. Since conservation tillage is a lower cost means of improving water quality than wetland preservation, its inclusion can achieve comparable environmental benefits at decreased agricultural cost. La politique canadienne multicouche sur les zones humides préconise la préservation des zones humides «d'importance», mais les critères d'identification de ces zones ne sont pas clairement définis, en partie parce que les zones humides offrent une foule d'avantages écologiques tels que la réduction des sédiments et la constitution d'habitats fauniques. Dans la présente étude, nous avons adapté un modèle économique et hydrologique fondé sur un système d'information géographique (SIG) pour analyser les compromis entre les intérêts agricoles et les avantages écologiques dans le bassin hydrographique de la rivière Eramosa, situé dans le sud-ouest de la province d'Ontario, au Canada. Bien que la préservation des zones humides améliore la qualité de l'eau et les habitats fauniques, et que les coûts liés à la préservation ne cessent d'augmenter, le classement des zones humides et, par conséquent, le choix des zones humides «d'importance» varient considérablement en fonction de l'avantage retenu comme objectif politique. Le compromis entre les avantages des zones humides et le drainage est diminué s'il existe une solution de rechange pour réduire les sédiments. Étant donné que, pour améliorer la qualité de l'eau, le travail de conservation du sol est un moyen plus économique que la préservation des zones humides, il peut permettre d'obtenir des avantages environnementaux comparables à des coûts agricoles moins élevés.     

Integrating Business and Ethical Values Through Practitioner Dialogue

In practice, the relationship between business and ethics is not well-settled. In the past, organisations have developed an interest in setting value charts but this has been approached from a purely managerial perspective following the momentum and interest aroused by research on organisational cultures. Although interest in managing organisational cultures has slowly died down, for both theoretical and practical reasons we argue that there are feasible ways to explore values as part of an organisational culture. Indeed it is our claim that it is feasible and productive to discuss values within organisations. However, rather than developing sophisticated theoretical frameworks, more efforts should be put into thinking about the conditions under which participants can enter into productive dialogue. It is our claim that if processes are carefully examined people within organisations can make better sense of their work and discover their own perspective to account for what they actually do and to project themselves into what they think they should be doing. Thus, values identified within the organisation can eventually reach a point where they become an expression of a shared commitment. The experience we describe aims to illustrate only one example of a concrete application of this approach.     

Proze?orientiertes produktionscontrolling

Proze?orientiertes Controlling erlaubt eine umfassende, differenzierte und zielgerichtete Steuerung des Produktionsprozesses. Besondere Bedeutung kommen dabei der Beachtung der Controllingkriterien vor einer Entscheidung sowie dem Forward-Controlling zu. Abh?ngig vom Produktionstyp ist das Controllinginstrumentarium unterschiedlich zu gestalten. W?hrend für die Einzelfertigung Kostenkriterien im Vordergrund stehen, stellen für die Serien-/Proze?fertigung Ressourcen, Termine und die internen und externen Qualit?tsfaktoren die wesentlichen Controllingkriterien dar.     

Non-Parametric Production Analysis of Pesticides Use in the Netherlands

Many previous empirical studies on the productivity of pesticides suggest that pesticides are under-utilized in agriculture despite the general held believe that these inputs are substantially over-utilized. This paper uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate non-parametric measures of the value of the marginal product of pesticides. Furthermore, the effect of pesticides on the value of the marginal product of productive inputs is investigated in order to analyze technical interdependence between pesticides and productive inputs. Results suggest, in general, substantial under-utilization of pesticides, which is consistent with earlier findings of parametric specifications.